


I'm Back

by xenxa_girl



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, heart warming fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:05:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenxa_girl/pseuds/xenxa_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin finds a box under Haru's bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emotionalhell](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=emotionalhell).



> They asked for something funny and/or smutty. I tried to deliver, but I ended up scrapping a lot of drafts. In the end, I churned out something more heart warming. I rushed through the end a bit, but I hope it flows okay.
> 
> This is for emotionalhell from your Secret Santa! I hope you like it!

It was a Saturday evening and Rin had just put on the finishing touches to the Christmas lights that were strung up around Haru's house. He had been called down by Makoto, who asked him to help their mutual friend in decorating for the holiday. Makoto would have helped as well if he wasn't off on an impromptu weekend trip with his family to go visit relatives. Not wanting to go back on his promise to help Haru, he called Rin instead, knowing the other boy had virtually no plans this weekend, unlike their other two friends. And Rin couldn't very well say no to Makoto, especially after everything that happened just a couple of months ago.

“Looks fine so far.”

Rin looked down from his perch atop the ladder and met the blue stare of the person who was making sure he wouldn't fall down and break his neck.

“You think?” Rin looked back at his handiwork, tilting his head and giving the lights a criticizing look. “Well, I guess that's good enough for now. Let's go light these babies up and hope we don't set the house on fire.”

Haru snorted at that, but didn't comment, only tightening his hold on the ladder as Rin clambered down. He set the ladder to lean on the side of the house and waited for Rin to flip on the light switch that would light up the decorations. Not a second later the bulbs lit up brightly in the light of the setting sun and Rin came back outside a moment later to join Haru.

“Damn, I did better than I thought,” he said, tucking his bare hands into his armpits and stomping his feet a little to stave off the chill.

Haruka just grunted, shivering as he looked at the lights strung about his house. Rin really did do better than expected. The lights were clear white ones, strung along the edges of the roof to parallel fallen snow. There were some strung around the second floor windows too and on the awning over the front door. All in all it was better than what Haru could do by himself. Hell, if it was solely up to Haru he would have just let his house go undecorated. It was just too much trouble to go about stringing up lights, at least by himself.

“Come on, let's go back inside. It's fucking freezing.”

Haru followed Rin inside. “It's barely close to freezing. You're just too used to Australian weather.”

“Fuck you Haru. I come back home every New Years, so that's no excuse.”

“I didn't say it was an excuse.”

The two bickered lightly as they stepped back inside to the warmth of the house, shedding their shoes and thin jackets and hurrying back to the living room. The inside of the house was filled with more decorations than the outside was; strands of garland and tinsel hung above the sliding doors and a small plastic Christmas tree was tucked in a corner hung, decorated with homemade decorations and candy canes. There was a distinct scent of cinnamon in the air, originating from the oven where Haru had a tray of ginger snaps baking. It certainly added to the domestic holiday cheer.

“Haru, I'll pack up the boxes all right? You make sure those cookies aren't burnt.”

“Yeah yeah.”

Chuckling quietly to himself, Rin did as he volunteered, packing up the box of decorations and bringing it upstairs to store it back in the hallway closet. From there he went into Haru's room, wanting to get his books and notebooks so that he can work on his homework. The weekend and oncoming Christmas and New Years didn't deter the education system, unfortunately.

Zipping open his backpack, Rin pulled out his required books, just glad that there wasn't a lot of homework. In his haste, one of his pencils slipped away to roll under Haru's bed. Cursing at himself for not using a pencil case, Rin set aside his things and pressed his body nearly flat on the ground to look for the wayward pencil. 

The pencil hadn't rolled too far back, thankfully, and Rin easily grabbed it, but then paused when he noticed that there was something else hiding under the bed. Normally he wouldn't give it a second thought, but this was a box under _Haru's_ bed. Haru, who was just as clean as Rin and didn't like unnecessary things getting in the way. From the months Rin spent getting closer to Haru and knowing him just a little bit better, he found that the other teen always had a place for everything. So a lone box under his bed was definitely suspicious.

Maybe it was a dirty little secret box that Haru wanted to keep, well, a secret.

Grinning to himself at the chance of uncovering perhaps a box of dirty magazines, Rin pulled out the box and made himself comfortable on the floor. The first thing he noticed about the box was that it had a light coat of dust on its surface, but it was too thin a coat to suggest that the box had gone untouched for months. Maybe a week or two, but it had definitely been borught out form its hiding place at least once this year. It only piqued Rin's curiosity even more.

He gripped the lid of the box and pulled it open, heart pumping just a little bit faster at the promise of uncovering one of Haru's secrets.

Instead of a pile of dirty magazines that Rin was expecting (though in retrospect it would have been magazines of NatGeo specials on bodies of water around the world or something in that regard) there was a pile of envelopes and pieces of paper that had seemingly random sketches on it. Taking the first drawing in his reach, Rin scrutinized it and felt his stomach drop.

The page was filled with sketches of a person, but not just any person, but of Rin back when he was young. The lines were sketchy and perhaps a little inexperienced, but there was no mistaking that hair and the wide grin with one sharp tooth peeking out form between two lips.

Feeling his stomach churn a little, Rin dug through the box for more sketches. There were many and most of them were of young Rin smiling and laughing and one where he was even pouting and had an irritated expression. Some of them brought up memories, though he wasn't sure how since he couldn't even see his own face at those times.

The sketches progressed in a way that made Rin looked like he was growing older, but the more Rin looked, the more he noticed that there were dark smudges on his face, as if they had been erased and redrawn over and over again, undecided on how he would look as he aged. Eventually, there were multiple images of a grown up Rin, all of differing body shapes and sizes, but each of them had no face, not even a nose or a mouth.

Rin pressed a hand to his mouth, trying to hold back tears at the sadness those pictures implied. At how Haru obviously missed him so much over the years that he even imagined how Rin would look like and put those images down on paper. Drawing many variations of Rin but unable to decide on a face because... well, Rin didn't know, didn't even want to speculate on the reason, but just thinking about it made him want to cry.

Wiping his eyes and sniffing, Rin put aside the drawings and reached into the box again, taking out the envelopes. He rifled through the backs, looking for a name, but most of them had none. Except for one, which was his own name, scribbled down in what he recognized as young Haru's handwriting. Heart beating fast, Rin took out the letter from the unsealed enveloped and unfolded it, reading it hungrily.

_Dear Rin,_

_How's Australia? Is it as hot as everyone says? Does your school have a big pool? I hope you're enjoying it there and made some friends. It would be lonely if you didn't have any._

_The new school year started. Makoto and I are in the same class again, which wasn't much of a surprise. We still see Nagisa every now and again, but since Makoto and I are in middle school now and swim club is over, we don't see him as much as he likes._

_Makoto and I joined the school swim club too. There are more people then I expected, but at least I get to use the school's swimming pool. I run to school everyday and time myself when I practice. I think the coach really likes me. Says that I'm a prodigy or something. Not that I care._

_Middle school is a lot harder than elementary. I'm still trying to get used to it. So many of my classmates are loud and annoying. It's hard to ignore them, but they go away eventually. Makoto just looks disappoint, as always. He wants me to make more friends but that's just too much trouble. They would probably think I'm too weird anyway._

_I hope to hear back from you soon. It's been so long and I... miss you._

_Sincerely, Haru_

Rin almost couldn't believe it. Haru had written him a letter all those years ago, one that he didn't send because... he was too shy? Embarrassed? Possibly, though it seemed much too out of character for young Haru to be embarrassed about something. Though maybe it wasn't much of a stretch. Rin was always misunderstanding Haru in some way.

The redhead quickly took out the other letters and read through them. They were all for him, all written in Haru's hand, all detailed accounts of how Haru was doing or what events had transpired in Iwatobi while Rin was gone.

_They're building a new mall in town. I think there's going to be a sports shop included-_

_Ran and Ren caught the chicken pox and Ojisan and Obasan were really worried since they are so young-_

_I quit the swim club-_

_My parents came home for Christmas this year. It was nice, seeing them again. They got me presents like a new pair of goggles and some art materials. Kaasan even made mackerel sushi-_

_Obasan died in her sleep last night-_

_I'm graduating middle school today. Now it's only five more years until I become ordinary-_

Then there was that one letter, the letter which came after that fated race when they were twelve. Rin knew it was written some time after that day because it only contained three simple words that were kept quiet, that were never voiced. Three words that would mean absolutely nothing to the Rin back then, but means so much the Rin of today.

_Rin,_

_I'm sorry._

Rin didn't even realized he was crying until he heard a voice speak out.

“You're crying.”

The redhead jumped at the voice and spun around to face the door, surprised to find Haru standing there, apron tied around his torso and his expression carefully blank.

“H-Haru! I didn't notice you there.” Rin tried to discretely wipe his eyes, but Haru saw them already so there wasn't much of a point.

Keeping silent, the other teen approached Rin, kneeling next to his friend and reaching out to gently take the letters and sketches that Rin was still holding. Rin felt slightly guilty that he had invaded Haru's privacy like that, but Haru didn't look like he was angry. In fact, he looked quite calm and maybe even a little relieved.

“I didn't think you'd find these,” Haru said as he flipped through the letters and sketches. “Actually, I completely forgot I had these.”

Rin relaxed a little and bent over to look at the pieces of paper alongside Haru. “Why did you write these? And draw these? Why didn't you send them?”

It took a moment for Haru to reply. “I needed to vent I guess,” He answered with a shrug. “At first I really did want to send you a letter, but I was too... embarrassed, too shy I guess, to actually send it. I didn't want to make it seem as the cold boy who was always annoyed at you would actually care enough to send a letter, asking how you were.”

That made sense to Rin, especially since that was his exact thought when he read the first letter.

“After that race though, I needed to get things off of my chest. Usually I would just swim the feelings away, but the water didn't feel as soothing as it used to be. It frustrated me, until I sat down one day and began to write another letter.” He pointed at the letter that detailed the building of the mall in town. “I realized that it made me feel a little better. Not completely, but it settled my nerves and helped me swim easier. It was after that I started drawing you.”

He took out the drawings he had of Rin and spread them out on the floor, fingers lightly touching the edges.

“I tried to draw you from memory, but after a while it got harder to draw your smile just right.”

His hands rested on the pages that had the renditions of a grown up Rin, none of them close to what Rin looked like now.

“I even tried to draw you as an adult, but the face...”

Haru let the sentence trail off, but Rin could hear the silent words that were spoken. He let the silence hang for a moment before he spoke, eyes on Haru.

“Did you really miss me that much?”

They had never talked about this, at least not as directly or openly. It had been months since they reconciled and though they didn't exactly sweep things under the rug, they didn't actively seek to bring their remaining issues out into the open. Until now.

With his blue eyes shining and wavering, Haru looked at Rin, All the answers were there in his eyes and for the first time Rin could see them, but Haru didn't just let his eyes speak for him.

“Yes. I missed you very much, Rin. And I'm happy that you're back.”

And Rin could tell that Haru didn't just mean “back in Japan” or “back home” but back _here_ , with Haru, with their friends. Back from the dark place he had been stuck in for so long. Back into the light, to the sight that they have never seen before.

Swallowing back the lump in his throat and blinking back the tears that welled up in his eyes, Rin reached out to grip Haru's hand, lips pulled back tight.

“I'm sorry.”

Haru shook his head, turning his hand up so that he could squeeze Rin's hand as well.

“You don't have to apologize,” he said, leaning close enough to bump foreheads with Rin. “That's all behind us now.” Haru smiled softly. “And to be honest, I'm glad all of that happened. It really helped all of us, even though it hurt. In the end, we all came out of it for the better.”

At that statement, Rin huffed out a laugh, reaching up with his free hand to wipe his eyes again. Always the crybaby.

“Shit Haru, when did you become such an optimist?”

“Are you disagreeing with me?”

“Did I say that?”

The two chuckled at each other and then fell into a comfortable silence. Despite Rin's initial trepidation about the letters and the sketches, he felt better about it now. Of course he still felt guilty about putting Haru and himself through all those years of hurt, but those pieces of paper hammered home just how much Haru cared for him, even back then when he was cold and seemingly emotionless and irritated about Rin's presence.

“Hey, let's go back down. The cookies are ready and they're going to get cold if we don't eat them while they're fresh.”

“Yeah, all right.”

They spared a moment to return everything into the box and tuck it back under the bed. Gently taking Rin's hand, Haru tugged the redhead towards the door, but was stopped when Rin didn't move with him. He looked back, eyebrows raised in question, but only got Rin's wine-colored eyes staring back at him.

After a beat of silence, Rin took a deep breath and said, “Haru... I'm back.”

Haru's eyes widened in surprise. Then his expression slowly melted into a heart warming smile. He squeezed Rin's hand, stepping close to the other to place a soft kiss on those lips that were still red from the cold, pulling away just slightly to whisper back three words.

“Welcome back, Rin.”


End file.
